Shoes
by miss selah
Summary: [Pan's Labyrinth] She doesn’t like pretty things, because she’ll just ruin them anyway. That’s why she likes him. [Pan x Ofelia]


* * *

**SHOES**

* * *

The first thing that she noticed, in her new life that was death, was not the denizens of the underworld, cheering with joy that their little Princess had returned. She had not noticed the King and Queen – her own mother and father – nor the Faun that stood at their feet. The faeries, even had floated like annoying little bugs around her, but she had not noticed them. Even the sun, which was not real in any sense of the term, was not what caught her eye, even as it burned them.

It was her lovely red-silk slippers.

She told the Faun this once, and he laughed in his wizened way. "You think you are so cute, Highness." He chuckled, and shook his head as he helped her to dress in her embrodered gown, which shone the same color as the sun. Here, where there was no real light, only the light that the King had never thought didn't exist, orange and red and yellow were the color of royalty.

"All of these dresses make me feel silly." She confessed, bashfully, as she pulled the feather light clothing over her head, not caring if he saw her naked because she didn't know that it was improper, and he didn't care to be the one to tell her.

The Faun looked at her, staring at the line between her clothes and her flesh, and shook his head. "Cute." He insisted, and toed a pair of silk slippers to her with a moss covered hoof. "Highness."

* * *

The second thing that she had noticed, in her new life that was death, was not that the sun wasn't in the sky, or that there wasn't even a sky at all. She didn't notice that there was no grass, only miles and miles of pavement, save for the seven circular gardens that they wandered through, aimlessly, in search of ways to pass a tiresome second thing that she noticed was that there was no breeze.

"Hey," She caught the Faun's attention with a wave her her hand, fanning herself delicately like the little princess that she was. "Why is it so hot here?" She asked, taking cover in the roots of a giant fig tree, which grew higher and higher, until it surfaced on the land miles above them.

"No air." The Faun explained with a wave of his hand, dismissing her worries as unimportant. "No turn of the Earth, no wind in your face."

She frowned prettily, her brows drawing together. "But there's no sun, and of course there must be air – we have to breath, don't we?"

The Faun laughed, an ancient sounding, deep laugh. "The sun. . . the sun! Always thinking of the world above!" The Faun patted her head, and her curls sunk from the humidity. "There is warmth because we are closer to the centre of the Mother than the surface, and we do no breath, so we don't need air."

Her lip poked out in a delicate pout. "Of course we breath." She insisted again, taking in two deep breaths as if to prove her point.

"You did not take in any oxygen, Highness." The Faun pointed out, and she would have gasped, except the sharp intake of breath was hollow and superficial, because he was right and she was a fool.

"Well then how are we _alive?" _She asked, startled.

The Faun blinked twice, obviously confused at the simple question. "Who said anything about being alive?"

* * *

The third thing that she noticed, in her new life that was death, was the flowers.

Or lack thereof.

"Where are all the flowers?" She asked the Faun, the childish joy that had always been in her voice fading away in to something more adult, something that neither one of them were prepared to deal with yet.

The Faun shook his head. "It's too hot here for anything to survive, especially something as delicate as a flower."

She frowned, but accepted his answer as the truth because in the Underworld, there was no such thing as lies. But she was beginning to suspect there could be such a thing as sadness.

The Faun, who was obviously quite put off whenever she was upset, sighed and conceded. "Well, there is _one _flower. . .

* * *

The fourth thing that she noticed, in her new life that was death, was that down here, fairytales were simply history. Even the ones that were created by unsuspecting children, simply trying to appease unborn babies.

The Faun and the Princess stood at the apex of a hill, and the Faun pointed out to where she could see a mass of violent looking thorns, all piled in to something that looked as though it were from a bad dream. "The only flower that grows down here is a Magical Blue Rose," the Faun told her, giving her feather light touched on the shoulder as a source of comfort. "It blooms every morning, and it's power's are great. It will bestow upon whoever plucks it the gift of immortality."

"Those thorns. . ." She asked, distracted. "Are they poisoned?"

The Faun nodded. "You need not worry, though, Princess. None of your mortal woes shall ever bother you again."

"Why will no one go see it?" She asked as she squinted, trying to see the flash of blue against the fake orange sky. She didn't ask why no one tried to take it's gift of immortality – that answer was blindingly obvious.

"There are no need for flowers in the Underground."

She tried not to think in metaphors.

* * *

The fifth thing that she noticed, in her new life that was death, was that she wasn't needed there.

She was loved by the denizens, but only because she reminded them of the above world, where there was heartbreak and pain, but also _hope. _Where you could kill and be killed, hurt and cry and bleed, but you could breath and laugh and smile, and it would be _real. _It was beautiful here, the same way that her lovely red slippers were beautiful, but it was careful and uneasy, because it was a land stuck in an impossible place, a dream that had no hope of every becoming true, and ending that wasn't 'happily ever after' so much as 'ever after.'

It was pretty the same way the Magic Blue Rose was pretty. It was pretty the same way that she was pretty.

"Am I real?" She asked the Faun as she bathed naked in the cool pools of the seven circular gardens.

The Faun laughed, and shook off her question – the same way he always did when he was being evasive with her questions. "You are more real than I am." He told her, but she heard the loop.

"Are you real?"

He didn't even bother to evade it. He just stared, at a point beyond her breast, and she knew he wasn't looking at her.

* * *

It was not night when she fled, and if it was she couldn't tell because time flowed differently in this place of shoes and courts and false suns. It was not stormy, and it was not windy or rainy. He did not chase her, calling out to her as his hooves clacked along behind her, and she did not run because no one would stop her anyway.

"She's leaving again." The King whispered in the Faun's mind as he clopped about the first garden. "She's going back to the surface."

"Yes, Highness." The Faun sounded more than a bit put out.

"Will you chase her?" There was humor in his voice, the sort that would have made the Faun suspect that the King knew a joke that he didn't, except that he did know what the King found so amusing.

"Yes, Highness."

"Will you bring her back?"

"Yes, Highness."

There was a pause, and for a moment the Faun thought that the King was done with him. "Do you love her?" The King finally asked.

It was the Faun that hesitated this time, before he finally smiled and waved a hand, and affect that was lost on the King that was not there anyway. "What would make you think that?"

* * *

The first thing that she noticed, in her new death that was life, was that the cold is colder than she remembered, and that her body was no longer able to stand it. That the wind was too brisk and she was too brittle, so it blew straight through her. That she wasn't used to breathing any more, so she gasped for breath, deep gulps of air, every few seconds.

The Faun was there before death set in, wrapping his fur covered arms around her. "Come home?" He asked her, his nose in her neck, a frown on his face.

She sighed, smiled. "No." She told him, and gave him a tight hug. "I'm happy here."

_Are you sure? _He didn't ask, because she wasn't one to say things that she didn't mean.

She died in his arms, the wind on her face, the scent of him in her nose. He didn't cry for her, because he knew that they would meet again. She would be born again, and he didn't have to worry about dying and leaving her. In retrospect, it was probably why she left him. She was so used to everyone leaving her that it must have been very disconcerting to have someone stand by her, through lifetimes, if only to spend days with her every few centuries. Her body, whether it be human of immortal, was delicate and brittle and pretty, and she was never particularly good at keeping things good as new.


End file.
